Debunking The Christ Myth?

Argument from Glenn Kimball
against
The Christ Conspiracy
(which he hasn't read)

"This thinking," i.e, that Jesus Christ is a mythical character, is
not at all a "new fad." It has been around since the very beginning, because the
intelligentsia of the ancient world knew that what the early Church fathers were palming off was
mummified mythology. As Rev. Robert Taylor says:

And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but
never so strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of
Christ as a man most strenously denied.

Indeed, the first and second epistles of John were written
principally to combat such deniers of the historical Christ. (1 Jn. 4:2-3; 2 Jn. 7) The denial of
"Christ come in the flesh" is an early "heresy" called "Docetism," whose proponents not only
abounded during the first centuries of the Christian era but were the original "Christians," i.e.,
Gnostics.

We have letters written in the hand of Jesus. A myth doesn't write
letters.

As concerns the "letters from Jesus's own hand," no scholar of any
worth, Christian or otherwise, has ever considered these "letters" to be "genuine." Like most
Christian writings and artifacts, these "letters" are forgeries. The Catholic Encyclopedia
truthfully asserts that the legendary event purported in the most infamous of these "letters,"
i.e., that to "King
Abgar," is an "imaginary occurrence," and states concerning the spurious
letter from Christ:

The text is borrowed in two places from that of the Gospel, which of itself
is sufficient to disprove the authenticity of the letter. Moreover, the quotations are
made not from the Gospels proper, but from the famous concordance of Tatian, compiled in
the second century, and known as the "Diatessaron," thus fixing the date of the legend as
approximately the middle of the third century.

The Catholic Encyclopedia also says of this "letter":

Its legendary environment and the fact that the Church at large did not hand
down the pretended epistle from Our Lord as a sacred document is
conclusive against it.

As Wells says in The Historical Evidence for
Jesus:

About 1200, Constantinople was so crammed with relics that one may speak of
a veritable industry with its own factories. Blinzler (a Catholic New Testament scholar)
lists, as examples, letters in Jesus' own hand, the gold brought to the baby Jesus by the
wise men, the twelve baskets of bread collected after the miraculous feeding of the 5000,
the throne of David, the trumpets of Jericho, the axe with which Noah made the Ark, and
so on...

And Wheless says in Forgery in Christianity:

[T]hat "very dishonest writer," Bishop Eusebius, in the fourth
century...forged the Letters between Abgar and Jesus, falsely declaring that he had found
the original documents in the official archives, whence he had copied and translated them
into his Ecclesiastical History... If the Gospel tales were true, why should God need
pious lies to give them credit? Lies and forgeries are only needed to bolster up
falsehood: "Nothing stands in need of lying but a lie." But Jesus Christ must needs be
propagated by lies upon lies; and what better proof of his actuality than to exhibit
letters written by him in his own handwriting? The "Little Liars of the Lord" were equal
to the forgery of the signature of their God - false letters in his name, as above cited
from that exhaustive mine of clerical falsities, the Catholic
Encyclopedia.

No, a myth doesn't write letters. Forgers do.

There was a recent discovery of a prescription written by Jesus. A
myth doesn't write prescriptions.

In the first place, considering the Holy Forgery Mill, I wouldn't
trust that this "document" even dated from the proper time and place. I haven't seen it or any
scholarship on it. Just Kimball's word. In the second place, the names IES, IESIOS, IASIOS, JESUS,
etc., were terms that mean "salvation" and represented the mystical, allegorical and non-historical
spiritual head of salvation cults that proliferated from England to China. The terms were used as
secret spells by healers, or Therapeuts, who may have written a
"prescription" with the word on it. Such claims as Kimball's truly reveal the shoddy "scholarship"
and "science" accepted by blind believers.

For those who really have read they know that Jesus is mentioned in
the archives of Roman, Druid, Indian, Japanese and a dozen more cultures. A myth doesn't get
mentioned as a personal visit to that many diverse cultures and people during His
lifetime.

We have financial records of the family. A myth
didn't have money.

These claims is completely untrue. There are NO
contemporary records, Roman, Indian, Druid, Japanese, or otherwise, of
any character as depicted in the Gospel. There WERE plenty of people running around with the name
of "Joshua" or "Jesus" or "Jason" or any variant thereof. None of their stories is what is recorded
in the New Testament. (See also the IES, etc., comment above: To wit, there were salvation cultists
from England to China.)

The records of the Romans alone about the life and times of Jesus
should be enough to convince the masses. Tiberius went to the floor of the Roman senate just after
the death of Christ and petitioned that Rome adopt Jesus as a god (little g). (Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire by Gibbons 1782) Tiberius knew Jesus and his family personally and said so.
Tiberius corresponded with his Granddaughter Claudia Procula who was married to Pilate on the
matter of Jesus. Tiberius made the foster father of Jesus Noblis Decurio for the Roman Empire. That
made Jesus and His foster father Roman citizens worthy of note in the records of Rome.

Again, there are NO Roman records, save for countless
FORGED "documents." The statement about Tiberius going to the Roman senate was
made by Tertullian (c. 160-230 CE), one of the "little liars of the Lord," long after the purported
event. Of this statement by Tertullian, the Catholic Encyclopedia(CE) says:

The narrative is not worthy of belief, still it is probable that Tertullian
knew a document that professed to be a report of Pilate.

"Professed" being a key word here. Kimball is again referring to
FORGED texts regarding Procla, etc., one of the many such spurious texts found in The Lost
Books of the Bible, which is one of Kimball's "sources." The reason why these texts were
"hidden" is because they are known forgeries.

In reality, according to GA Wells, the Roman historian Tacitus
reported that UNDER TIBERIUS (42 BCE-37 CE) THERE WERE NO DISTURBANCES IN PALESTINE. If Tiberius
had actually spoken about the god "Jesus," he would have been referring to the ubiquitous
pre-Christian non-historical, non-carnalized "savior" of the (Gnostic) salvation cultists and would
thus represent one of the first conspirators.

How is it that the early Church fathers and all the other Christian
fanatics overlooked all of these "archives" and "records" when they were pressed to provide proof
of their fables?

Longinus converted to Christianity and so did Pilate and his wife.
They were slain for their conversion. Longinus converted and went with the Virgin Mary in exile to
England. He was the one who threw the sword into the side of Christ at the cross. Longinus had a
good job with the Romans and was the one who stood on the steps of the Roman Senate when Julius
Caesar was stabbed to death. Would you have abandoned your entire life to live in exile for no
reason?

The story of "Longinus" and the spear, like basically everything
else in the gospel fable, including the Virgin Mary, is found in older mythologies. The rest of
Kimball's assertion is fiction. Where do these people come up with this nonsense?

Longinus was the name of the Roman soldier who stuck Jesus in the
side with a spear. Legend held that Longinus was blind and was subsequently cured by Jesus's blood.
Again, this is not a historical event but part of the mythos and sacred king ritual, as Walker
relates:

The true prototype of the legend seems to have been the blind god Hod, who
slew the Norse savior Balder with the thrust of a spear of mistletoe.... March 15, the
"Ides of March" when most pagan saviors died, was the day devoted to Hod by the heathens,
and later Christianized as the feast day of the Blessed Longinus.

Walker also states:

Up to Hadrians time, victims offered to Zeus at Salamis were anointed with
sacred ointmentsthus becoming "Anointed Ones" or "Christs" then hung up and stabbed
through the side with a spear.

In addition, the Scandinavian god Odin, and the god Marsyas of
Mindanao in the Philippines were hung on a "fatal tree" and stabbed with a spear. The Hindu god
Vishnu (Bal-ii) was crucified with a spear in his side, bearing the epithet "side-wounded." The
gods Wittoba and Adonis were also crucified and "side-wounded" saviors.

Although a myth, many "authentic" "spears of Longinus" have been
"found" in the Christian world. Indeed, Hitler purportedly spent a great deal of time, money and
energy to track down the "true" spear, believing that it, like so many other "sacred" objects, held
occultic powers.

The side-wounding in the mythos is due to the position of the sun
near Sagittarius, the archer, also a centaur or centurion..

Pilate was the world's most important witness of the life of Christ.
Pilate left his letters to Rome on this matter and met the resurrected Jesus face to face in the
streets. Why would Pilate leave us letters describing a myth which cost him his life?

Writings regarding Pilate and Jesus, such as the obviously
fictitious "Acts of Pilate," are well-known forgeries, admitted by the Catholic
Encyclopedia. The Jewish historian Philo wrote about Pilate, mentioning his abuses, but not a
single word about anyone remotely resembling Jesus Christ being crucified under his
procuratorship.

These "letters" are KNOWN FORGERIES, which is why
they are apocryphal. Much mythmaking surrounded Pilate. The Catholic Encyclopedia relates
the troubles Pilate had with the Samaritans and states:

That is the last we know of
Pilate from authentic sources, but legend has been busy with his name. He is said by
Eusebius (H.E., ii, 7), on the authority of earlier writers, whom he does not name, to have
fallen into great misfortunes under Caligula, and eventually to have committed suicide. Other
details come from less respectable sources. His body, says the "Mors Pilati," was thrown into
the Tiber, but the waters were so disturbed by evil spirits that the body was taken to Vienne
and sunk in the Rhone, where a monument, called Pilate's tomb, is still to be seen. As the same
thing occurred there, it was again removed and sunk in the lake at Lausanne. Its final
disposition was in a deep and lonely mountain tarn, which, according to later tradition, was on
a mountain, still called Pilatus, close to Lucerne. The real origin of this name is, however,
to be sought in the cap of cloud which often covers the mountain, and serves as a barometer to
the inhabitants of Lucerne. There are many other legends about Pilate
in the folklore of Germany, but none of them have the slightest
authority.

Kimball is also evidently referring to the
"letter purporting to have been sent by Pontius Pilate to the Emperor Claudius" embodied in the apocryphal (BOGUS) "Acts of Peter and Paul," of which the Catholic
Encyclopedia states, "This composition is clearly apocryphal though unexpectedly brief and
restrained."

This statement that there are "MILLIONS of ancient texts" is
completely absurd. What we have are some 200 gospels and epistles, many of which were Gnostic,
i.e., they represented a fictional or allegorical Jesus, not a "man who walked
the earth." The childhood stories as found in the Infancy Gospels are in large part tales about the
Hindu god Krishna, whose name was "Christos" in Greek, by which the soldiers of Alexander the Great
called him. The Indian text, the Bhagavat Purana, was historicized and Judaized sometime
during the second century. Other "texts" purportedly mentioning Jesus that Kimball is apparently
referring to are the myths of other cultures that revolve around the ubiquitous sun god or solar
hero. These various Gnostic and noncanonical texts are not "hidden" but have been known for
centuries and correctly dismissed as "apocryphal" or bogus. Kimball is attempting to make this
"discovery" appear earth-shattering.

Kimball claims that these various "childhood" texts
were written by those authors purported, i.e., the apostles such as Matthew and James. They were
not. They are pseudepigraphical forgeries. As concerns such apocryphal
texts, which were all the rage during the centuries preceding and
succeeding the Christian era, the Catholic Encylopedia
acknowledges:

Pseudographic composition was in vogue among the Jews in the two centuries
before Christ and for some time later. The attribution of a great name of the distant
past to a book by its real author, who thus effaced his own personality, was, in some
cases at least, a mere literary fiction which deceived no one except the ignorant. This
holds good for the so-called "Wisdom of Solomon," written in Greek and belonging to the
Church's sacred canon. In other cases, where the assumed name did not stand as a symbol
of a type of a certain kind of literature, the intention was not without a degree
of at least objective literary dishonesty.

One of the texts Kimball uses, the Infancy Gospel of James, also known as the
Protoevangelium Jacobi, is well known to be an apocryphal or pseudepigraphical forgery. As
the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

It purports to have been written by "James the brother of the Lord," i.e.
the Apostle James the Less. It is based on the canonical Gospels which it expands with
legendary and imaginative elements, which are sometimes puerile or
fantastic. The birth, education, and marriage of the Blessed Virgin are
described in the first eleven chapters and these are the source of various traditions
current among the faithful.... Critics find that the "Protoevangelium" is a composite
into which two or three documents enter. It was known to Origen under the name of the
"Book of James". There are signs in St. Justin's works that he was acquainted with it, or
at least with a parallel tradition. The work, therefore, has been ascribed to the second
century.

Of the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, evidently
also promoted by Kimball, CE says: "It is a tasteless and bombastic effort, and seems to
date from about the fourth century."

His book Hidden Politics of the
Crucifixion, Kimball claims, "includes the actual letters of Pilate, Herod
and the Caesars discussing the events of the Crucifixion. It also contains the actual conversation
recorded in ancient texts between the resurrected Jesus and Pontius Pilate."

The "actual letters of Pilate, etc." Addressed above, but these
specific "letters" are found in the "minor Pilate apocrypha, the Anaphora Pilati, or
'Relation of Pilate,'" in which, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "There exists a
puerile correspondence consisting of a pretendedLetter of
Herod to Pilate and Letter of Pilate to Herod." These spurious texts are no older than
the fifth century.

Kimball is also evidently referring to the "Acts of
Pilate" or the "Gospel of Nicodemus," an obviously fictitious forgery of the fourth century that is
so ridiculous it even presumes to record the actual conversations of the astonished faithful and
prophets of old, such as David and Enoch, who have been resurrected from the dead after Jesus's own
resurrection and ascension! This text was considered so evidently fictitious that it was nixed and
buried, because it would so readily cast doubt upon the "veracity" of the gospel tale as well. Only
the credulous and uncritical do not realize the fictitious nature of this text. These are, in
short, fairytales, not historical accounts. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says of the
so-called Gospel of Nicodemus, "The writers (for the work we have is a composite) could not have
expected their production to be seriously accepted by unbelievers."

As concerns these various apocryphal gospels, the Catholic
Encyclopedia says:

When, therefore, enterprising spirits
responded to this natural craving by pretended Gospels full of romantic fables and
fantastic and striking details, their fabrications were eagerly read and largely
accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were
predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and
Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no other motive than that of
a pious fraud.... But the heretical apocryphists, while gratifying curiosity, composed
spurious Gospels in order to trace backward their beliefs and peculiarities to Christ
Himself. The Church and the Fathers were hostile even towards the narratives of
orthodox authorship. It was not until the Middle Ages, when their true origin was forgotten
even by most of the learned, that these apocryphal stories began to enter largely into sacred
legends, such as the "Aurea Sacra," into miracle plays, Christian art, and poetry. A comparison
of the least extravagant of these productions with the real [sic] Gospels reveals the chasm
separating them. Though worthless historically, the apocryphal Gospels help us to
better understand the religious conditions of the second and third centuries, and they are also
of no little value as early witnesses of the canonicity of the writings of the four
Evangelists.

Of yet another forged "letter," that of "Lentulus," CE says:

A brief letter professing to be from Lentulus, or Publius Lentulus, as in
some manuscripts, "President of the People of Jerusalem", addressed to "the Roman Senate
and People", describes Our Lord's personal appearance. It is evidently spurious,
both the office and name of the president of Jerusalem being grossly
unhistorical. No ancient writer alludes to this production, which is found only
in Latin manuscripts. It has been conjectured that it may have been composed in order to
authenticate a pretended portrait of Jesus, during the Middle Ages.

The list of spurious "documents" goes on and on, and it is from these that Kimball
gets his "new history" of the mythical Jesus. For more information, please see the
Catholic Encyclopedia entry for Apocrypha.

And for those who have problems with the truthful statements from the Catholic
Encyclopedia regarding fraudulent compositions from its own Church hierarchy, we have
plenty of Protestant scholars also attesting to the fact of Christian forgery.

The Protestant Encyclopedia Biblica states, "Almost every one
of the Apostles had a Gospel fathered upon him by one early sect or another."

Another Protestant authority, Dr. Conyers Middleton said:

There never was any period of time in all ecclesiastical history, in which
so many rank heresies were publicly professed, nor in which so many spurious books were
forged and published by the Christians, under the names of Christ, and the Apostles, and
the Apostolic writers, as in those primitive ages. Several of forged books are frequently
cited and applied to the defense of Christianity, by the most eminent fathers of the same
ages, as true and genuine pieces.

He also states, "Buddhism has also been influenced by Christianity,
though it does not believe in a supreme being. At least we do not have an argument with the
Buddhist over the name of God, or arguments over which brother received the real birthright. The
Buddhists were influenced by the tradition of the Christian Gnostics, in that they knew Jesus, the
prophet King, and felt that spiritually originates from within the individual and not necessarily
from the hierarchy of the church."

Buddhism existed first and was copied by Christians. Many attributes
and sayings of "the Buddha" were taken by the Christians in their creation of Jesus Christ. Kimball
certainly does not know his history very well and simply makes any bald statement to support his
case. The rest of his book seems to be composed of the endless silly legends made up by numerous
priests to bedazzle their gullible followers. These legends are NOT history. These puerile and
gullible statements are an insult to the intelligence, as well as to all the other cultures that
had these stories long before the Christian era and the mythical advent of Christ.

I could go on for volumes, but it wouldn't do any good for those who
have already made up their minds that Jesus was a myth. I had a near death experience seven years
ago and I changed my mind in a tenth of a second. I have been an atheist most of my life and fought
against religions and tradition. I was wrong. I have a personal witness that Jesus did live and
still does.

Many people have had near-death experiences. They
prove nothing but the conditioning of the individual's mind. The followers of Osiris, Isis, Buddha,
Krishna and many others ALSO saw them in NDEs, visions and hallucinations. Hindus see the
elephant-headed god Ganesha. If such serve as "proof" of their reality, then these gods are also
real. I personally have had visions of Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and Mickey Mouse.

Someone has sold your friends a terrible lie. This movement is
typical. It is easier to deny the existence of someone than to fight His teachings. The ignorant
will follow anyone with passion until they read and study for themselves.

Sorry, Glenn, but it's you have been sold a "terrible lie." "The
ignorant?" Much of what you have claimed is indicative of a profound ignorance of the ancient
world. The mythicists have in general been better educated than blind believers. I too invite
everyone to read and study for themselves - they will easily see that the absurd claims of
believers, which should have been evident as fiction in the first place, completely fall apart. (My
book, The Christ Conspiracy,
lays out the case in over 400 pages. For FREE reading on this subject, please see my
dissertation Origins of Christianityand Christ Conspiracy
Links.)

However, don't believe me. Jesus said it Himself that in the end
every knee shall bow and tongue confess that He was the Christ. After my experience and study I
would like to be a fly on the wall when these people who believe Jesus to be a myth meet Him face
to face. I too was not only brought to my knees, but lifted at the same time. I cried a steady
stream of tears for two weeks solid. Try shedding tears for two solid weeks. Part of me wanted to
hide under a rock and part of me had to do something to make amends. You will have to make up your
own mind. I wish you well. I don't wish to make fun of those who have perpetrated this lie.They are
trying to make sense of the world like everyone else. My old father told me something when I was
very young that I didn't understand at the time. He told me it was a thousand times easier to
critique than it was to advocate. Surely a belief in Jesus will take a thousand times more effort
than to make Him into a myth in the minds of men. A belief in Christ changes a person. It is a
belief that requires effort and character. It will take the rest of my life to make amends for what
I have done to bring Him down. However, I have only one option left. I can't fight my eyes and
ears.

Glenn Kimball

I don't accept that this wretched phantasm is a "god" of any sort.
And the condescension of BLIND believers never fails to astound. Nice touch, the "atheist
persecutor" bit. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, some guy named Saul who became Paul!
And are you suggesting that your measly "efforts to bring him down" have somehow hurt this
"omnipotent" god?

While the rest of this maudlin mush may evoke
sympathy for an apparently pained existence, it does not serve as a demonstration of anything other
than the mental state of its author.

Regarding the statement that it is "a thousand times easier to
critique than to advocate" - HARDLY a truism in the case of Christianity, the proponents of which
have tortured and slaughtered some 200 million or more unbelievers over the centuries. Considering
how even today critical scholars and scientists are shouted down by emotional believers, it is MUCH
more difficult to point out that there is NO historical or archaeological record for this fable
having taking place in history. It takes an enormous amount of courage, in fact.

No matter what these guys come up with, the fact will remain that
virtually the entire gospel story is found around the globe for centuries and millennia prior to
the Christian era and represents the personification of the sun.

"Murdock's scholarship is relentless! ...the research conducted by
D.M. Murdock concerning the myth of Jesus Christ is certainly both valuable and worthy of
consideration." —Dr. Kenneth L. Feder, Professor of Archaeology, Central Connecticut
State University, Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience In
Archaeology

"I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock... I
find it undeniable that...many, many of the epic heroes and ancient patriarchs and
matriarchs of the Old Testament were personified stars, planets and constellations..."
—Dr. Robert M. Price, The Pre-Nicene New Testament

"I can recommend your work whole-heartedly!" —Dr. Robert Eisenman,
James the Brother of Jesus and The New Testament Code,
RobertEisenman.com

"Acharya S deserves to be recognized as a leading researcher and an
expert in the field of comparative mythology, on a par with James Frazer or Robert
Graves—indeed, superior to those forerunners in the frankness of her conclusions and the
volume of her evidence." —Barbara Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and
Secrets and Man Made God

"...I have found Murdock's scholarship, research, knowledge of the
original languages, and creative linkages to be breathtaking and highly stimulating."
—Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham, Pastor, Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX

"I've known people with triple Ph.D's who haven't come close to the
scholarship in Who Was Jesus?" —Pastor David Bruce, M.Div, North Park
Seminary, Chicago, HollywoodJesus.com

"Thirty years ago, when in divinity school, I might have had second
thoughts about becoming an Episcopal priest if a book like D. M. Murdock's Who Was Jesus? had been available to me." —Bob Semes, Retired
university professor of History and Religion, Founder and Executive Director of The
Jefferson Center

"Ms. Murdock is one of only a tiny number of scholars with the richly
diverse academic background (and the necessary courage) to adequately address the
question of whether Jesus Christ truly existed as a walking-talking figure in
first-century Palestine." —David Mills, Atheist Universe